In the related art, a CO2 laser for generating laser light from an optical resonator containing a gain medium has been proposed (see, for example, Patent Literature 1).
A CO2 laser device described in Patent Literature 1 includes a housing containing a gaseous gain medium including CO2, a laser resonator including a high reflector and an output coupler, an excitation arrangement for exciting the gain medium, and an acousto-optic (AO) cell disposed in the laser resonator. The CO2 laser device generates a Q-switched pulse by switching the laser resonator between a high loss state and a low loss state through use of the AO cell. However, the laser output is limited to a light-resisting power (for example, several hundred watts) or less of the acousto-optic cell.